I am coming up on 8 years sober in November. Little more than 6 years from when I quit cigarettes too. It's hard, but the most important advice I can give you is - if this is something you want for yourself, you have to think of yourself as not an addict or a alcoholic anymore. It's hard because an addict will burden him or herself with shame and that can be just as heavy as the addiction itself. You made a mistake and went down a path that negatively impacted your life. But there is a path back to the original one and if you look for it, you will find it. Remember the things that used to make you happy and go back to them. You'll find yourself again, make new friends along the way and perhaps even mend things with old ones. You just have to want it for yourself. So many people go into recovery to make someone else happy, and every single one of them fail. They relapse, and the pain takes hold of them again. It's a cycle that is exceedingly hard to get out of. But trust me. If I can do it, so can you. There is nothing extraordinary about what I did other than want to be myself again. But the worst thing you can do early in recovery is think of yourself as not deserving happiness, or having to earn your place back. I did A LOT of things during my addiction that I'm not proud of, but after all this time I know that it was the addiction that influenced me. Take that away, and you become yourself again. I hope this helps. If you want to DM me about anything in particular you are struggling with I would be happy to talk to you about it.